The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 51: The Alex Ovechkin Of The 2nd Unit

Episode Date: January 19, 2016

Arik Parnass makes his return to the show to discuss the recent Hockey Analytics Conference held in Ottawa (which he attended in person), and how the tracking companies cropping up these days will eventually change the way we analyze the game. We also chat about his recent work breaking down power plays around the league. What makes the best ones ticks, and what are the best future indicators we can look for in the data? Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, and can also be streamed from our website. Make sure to not only subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new shows as they’re released, but also take a minute to leave us a glowing review. If you’ve been enjoying the work we’ve been doing please also consider chipping in to help support the show (www.hockeypdocast.com/donate). There are a handful of housekeeping costs associated with producing the show that need to be covered, and every little bit helps. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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And joining me as a man who's been on the show before, it's Eric Parnas. Eric, what's going on, man? Not much. It's great to be back on. Yeah, no, for those that I guess don't remember, have short-term memory or didn't listen, Eric was on when he wrote about the minutiae of the whole beat reporter

a while back. So I think that was maybe a month or so ago now, so you can go back and listen to that if you haven't already. But we figured it was a good time to get you back on the show because you were present in person at the Ottawa Hockey Analytics Conference this past week. How'd that go? It was great. Yeah, having been to a few of these now, it's always fun to, you know, reconnect with the regulars

and the people who try to go to as many as possible and also always, you know, to meet new people, whether it's the locals in Ottawa. This was the first time I've been to one in Ottawa. So obviously, you know, a bunch of new people from that area that I hadn't met before. And then, you know, also, you know, people, whether it's, bloggers or media people or NHL people or whoever, you know, Sats people, it's always great

to connect and see some cool new work. Yeah, I don't know what it is, but it seems like a lot of the analytics people that I know are sort of from around that area, so I guess it's just a, it's a booming demographic over there. Yeah, well, I mean, the, the Ontario, Toronto sort of center of the hockey world thing

also kind of applies to hockey analytics, it seems, so yeah, it was great. So what would you say was the, I guess, like, the one big takeaway you had. And I'm sure there was a bunch of great stuff that was discussed on the panels. But what was like the one, I guess, thing that just made you think the most or was something that kind of surprised you or, I don't know, like you can answer that in any way you want, I guess?

Well, for me, I mean, the new thing that they had going on this conference that we haven't really seen before was presentations from some of these tracking companies, which was probably the most interesting thing for me, just sort of getting a sense of, you know, where the field is going and some of the new technology that's out there. I mean, I had been fortunate to see, you know, some previews and some stuff on a couple of the companies to sort of get an idea of what they were going to present. But there was something that I hadn't. I mean, from Sport Logic, Power Scout, a bunch of these guys. And, you know, they all, I was worried a little bit that all the presentations would kind of seem alike. And they actually managed to talk about a bunch

of different concepts. Power Scout had some cool stuff on pace of different hockey players. And as opposed to speed and the way that they pushed the game forward, which was a cool new take. And obviously, you know, just some of graphically, some of the stuff that they can do is awesome to see. So it was cool. And it was

actually really funny, too, because Brian McDonald from the Florida Panthers was hosting that panel that they had with all those teams and it almost looked like an episode of The Bachelor because it was kind of Brian McDonald up there, like, so contestant number one, tell me how you're tracking technology. So that was, that

That was pretty comical, so I was enjoying watching that. Yeah. No, well, I think there's sort of been a little bit of a pushback to these trachy companies online with the analytics community just because it's sort of like this black box, right, where it's a lot of its proprietary stuff or stuff we're not necessarily privy to in terms of seeing all of their work. And it's natural to be sort of a little bit skeptical and wonder what the validity of all that information is.

But at the same time, there's just no denying about how, like, that's, you know, going to be the new wave of this industry and just the power of those programs to kind of track all this stuff that would just take way too much time for us to manually record and get all the information for it is just remarkable. And it goes back to also sort of the separation between journalism and marketing because for a lot of these companies, you know, they have whether it's agreements with media conglomerates or different things and they publish articles that, you know, come off as sort of, you know, statistically valid studies and equivalent work to something that you and I or anyone else would do.

But it's different in a sense because, you know, what they're really selling is their data or their analysis to teams or to people who are going to give out big contracts. And they don't really care as much necessarily about whether the public is led reliably in terms of, you know, the statistical validity of their studies. So that's not to say that they're necessarily being irresponsible with it. That's sort of up in the air for people to decide. But, the incentives for them, let's say, are a little different from someone who's just sort of doing it for themselves or doing it to get a job for themselves and sort of spread their brand specifically.

Yeah. I'm just looking forward to the day, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later, where all this stuff's public, it's going to make our lives significantly easier. Yeah, let's hope it gets to that point. Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of tracking stuff and kind of breaking the game down into smaller little components, You've recently went live with an endeavor you've undertaken.

It's called the Special Teams Project and all the work can be found at NHLspecialteams.com. And it's become a must read for hockey fans, I think, purely because you're covering stuff there that I think tends to be overlooked, right? Like, as you mentioned in your introductory post, there's a lot of emphasis has been placed on five-on-five and, you know, justifiably so. but we always cite 5.5% percentage and possession stats and all this stuff. And we tend to overlook how important a power play can be and how important a penalty kill can be. And it's cool to see you doing some of that work. So I guess I'll just open the floor to you here to let the listeners know a little bit about the work you're doing. Yeah, well, unsurprisingly, this sort of goes back to when I was watching the Capitals a lot,

when I was working for them in D.C. and just marveling at what they could do, which we talked about before. but seeing what they could do and how structured they were and just, you know, strategically how they could tear teams apart and the advantage that gave them even at times when they didn't have such great even strength play and how big of an advantage it gave them sort of opened my eyes to some of the possibilities. And to me, it's still, it seems like a big inefficiency in a sport where, you know, there are little inefficiencies in different places. And I think we've done a good job generally at, you know, uncovering even strength play

and efficiencies in terms of whether it's, you know, carry and stump ins, or different factors involving coursey, but special teams have sort of been left aside, and people have infer different things based on what we've discovered about even strength play. So people will say sort of, oh, you know, carry the puck in on the power play, obviously, because that's sort of what we know at even strength and things like that and get as many shots as possible and the ways we evaluate those teams. People haven't really looked into them too deeply in terms of specifically special teams and how it differentiates.

And considering that special teams are, I mean, 20% of the game, and when it comes to winning playoff series, when it comes to making the playoffs, having those extra few power play goals, even though it doesn't seem like a lot, can make a big difference. So considering there really hasn't been much work done and that it was an area that really intrigued me,

that was something going back to last off season that I felt was an area that was ripe for the picking and that something that I would really enjoy doing. Yeah, well, it's one of those things where you watch someone these teams on the power play and they just look so feeble and it honestly feels like with certain teams that just isn't really a plan and I know you've kind of been beating this drum but would you say like just having some like some semblance of decisiveness on the power play is pretty much like the most important thing you can have yeah I mean that's my feeling on it I mean obviously there's you know

it's one of those things where I could easily you know I come off and say you know decisiveness and structure and you know the one three one formation let's say a lot of the things that the caps sort of champion are sort of the optimal way of doing things. And when I say that, I mean, it's really the optimal way of doing things for me until teams figure it out, which may happen, you know, sooner rather than later, if it becomes so prominent that the coaches are able to game plan more for it. But for now, it just seems like, you know, you have this, this giant, like, you know, golden plan that the caps have been carrying out for years now and it never seems to stop working and yet teams have been sort of reluctant to just be like well why don't we try that exact

thing essentially with our players maybe with only slight adaptations and see what we can do especially those teams that have struggled mightily the last few years on the power play and so it seems like there's this this inefficiency and this disconnect between what teams could be able to do with more structure and more decisiveness and more set plays honestly and what they actually roll out which seems like a slightly modified version of even strength hockey. Yeah, I remember last time we had you on, we quickly touched towards the end of the show on the Penguins powerplay and how some people were saying that maybe there's too many cooks in the kitchen

and they were just one of the worst units in the league, and it made no sense considering they had guys like Malkin and Crosby and Kessel and Latang and so on and so forth. And they've kind of righted the ship a little bit, but I remember reading about how they were trying to sort of emulate that style that the capitals had been so successful with on the, power play in years past and it just wasn't working for whatever reason. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think that you described it well.

I mean, I think that was a part of what they were doing. And even when, it's hard to know because when Sullivan came in, I mean, one of the things that he said was, which, you know, you hear from coaches and from, from commentators a lot is simplify it, just get shots on that, which kind of bugs me in a sense because, you know, it's an easy thing to say. But I like to make the football comparison to if you had a team with sort of star wide receivers than a star quarterback and you said, you know, let's just simplify things and run the ball, which, you know, it sounds very conventional logic and like you just got to get down and dirty,

but, you know, if you have stars on your team, you shouldn't just be taking shots from anywhere. You know, it's a waste of talent and in the end you're not going to get that many goals out of it, even though, you know, you'll obviously get a few. So to me, it's sort of a waste in that sense. So, you know, I haven't followed the Penguins Power Play super, super closely for my project, but I've watched it at times. And they've definitely looked a little more structured recently. They've gone to sort of a more condensed one-three-one, I think, with Krosby and Malkin on that right side.

And I think it's helped. It's not exactly the formation or the structure that I would use, but it's definitely something that's probably a little closer to what I would have preferred. Yeah. Well, I think that's a really important point to make about the shock quality component on the power play, because you often see when you're watching a game on TV, for example, or if you're at a game, fans can get a little restless, and they're just yelling shoot at players on the,

the power play when they're kind of passing it around on the perimeter. And I've always thought that was a silly thing to do. But it really when you think about it, it makes sense that especially if you have some of these high-end elite talents at your disposal that you'd want to try to look for the most optimal play as opposed to just firing the puck on the net and having it cleared out of the zone. I know you've written about the predictability moving forward in terms of what rates at we should be looking at to determine future powerplay success. shots aren't necessarily the king in this regard, are they?

No, I mean, that's what's been strange about these last few years is that it seems like shots just really aren't particularly predictive on the power play anymore. And we'll see whether that continues. But that's, you know, been one of the challenges, and we'll continue to be as I go forward with this project, is trying to figure out, you know, new ways to classify things. And, you know, some of it still has to go back to shots

because, you know, especially with micro data, you can't really base things on goals or you're just not going to get much of an idea. But, you know, it's trying to figure out, you know, whether it's seconds of zone time or different ways to measure things to try and get any kind of a signal out of what teams are doing. And the thing with the power play that people, you know, probably don't say enough is, I mean, when you have a power play,

you literally have an extra person on the ice. And the idea that you should just be shooting from anywhere, just trying to get shots on net and crash the net. And that stuff really amazes me when you consider the fact that, You know, it's really, power plays are about two-on-ones. It's about isolating that extra guy and getting that guy to puck so you can get a good look. And that's sort of always been the way it's been. And, you know, there are times when analytics conflicts can conflict with conventional logic,

but I don't really think that this is one of those in that sense. I think that shot quality is a lot more important on the power play than it is the deem's strength just because you have that opportunity to have that better shot quality because of the way that you have an extra guy. Yeah, no, I think that makes intuitive sense. Well, it's a good segue way. You mentioned kind of wanting to isolate guys and creating 2-1-1s and stuff like that and so forth. And it brings up an interesting debate that I know you wrote about recently, about kind of teams choosing to shadow Alex Ovechkin or just playing it straight up.

And I'm of two minds of it, just in the sense that in the long haul, we know that this guy is one of the most prolific shooters from that one particular spot on the ice. And it's kind of remarkable to me when everyone on the ice knows it's going to happen. the puck still finds his way to him. And more often than not, he winds up scoring from that spot. And I don't know, it's interesting because you don't typically want to let the best player and other team beat you. You want to like try and make a concerted effort to at least slow him down.

And if you lose because the role players and the other guys kind of step up, then you can live with that. And it's more agreeable. But at the same time, we've seen a couple teams shadow him. And it just opens up so much more space for the other guys. And the thing people don't necessarily talk about enough with this. Cap's power play is that Ovechkin's obviously great, but I think what really makes a tick is Nicholas Backstrom's ability to kind of take advantage of those little pockets of airspace that Ovechkin creates

by having guys kind of drag over to him with his gravitational pull that he seems to have on opponents. And Baxteram is just so good at picking other teams apart in that regard. So I don't know, do you have an opinion on what the best way to approach defending the caps powerplay is? Yeah, so this is something I've actually changed my view on a bit. I originally, going back a couple of years, would have said just sort of based on watching it a lot, that shadowing Ovechkin actually was a good strategy. Obviously, there was sort of a small sample on it,

but there were times when the Capp's powerplay really did look disoriented without the ability to get him the puck and just sort of didn't really find any other looks. But I think this year especially, now that they have T.J. O'Shee in there in the slot, he's really been the most dynamic weapon for them this year. I find the way the teams have found slight ways to take Ovechkin out of the angle he would most like. I think the fact that they don't have green sliding passes across anymore hurts Ovechkin a little bit.

And he's also not as had as much shooting luck and goalies are also more ready for that shot. So they've had to find other areas to succeed. And I think, you know, honestly, the biggest shooting weapon for them this year, more so than the, you know, cross-ice Ovechkin one-timer has been the, you know, from down low to Ovechkin up to Oce in the slot for the one-timer in various different ways, that's sort of been the biggest way for them to get scoring chances on the power play. So even if you take Ovechkin out of it, which as you saw in my article today, you know, teams have tried.

It just opens up guys like Oshy for open one-timers, which in a sense may be even more dangerous because they're closer to the net and the goalie has to move more. So right now I would definitely say the way to play is not to shadow Ovechkin. but there have been a couple of teams that I think have done good things. I mean, I think if you play, whether it's sort of a wedge, a 2-1-1 or a diamond, if you have a guy like a Dan Gerardi or somebody who's really a shot blocker primarily, you want to put that guy closest to Ovechkin.

And I wouldn't have it as a shadow. I would just have it as, you know, he's the guy on that side of the gold mouth who is ready to anticipate that pass over to Ovechkin and is ready to dive in front of it. because I think if you have that guy ready there, Ovechkin is a little limited in what he can do. And a lot of the time, he'll either put the shot wide, in which case it'll often go out for a clear, or he'll just put it right into the body of whoever that brave guy happens to be. But, yeah, I mean, there are teams that have put guys like Crosby in that position, which just seems so ludicrous to me.

I know you want, there are people who believe in having skilled guys on the PK, which I don't necessarily disagree with, and it's something I want to look into at some point. But in this case, I would say, no, You want a guy who you don't mind taking a shot and keeling over in that position. The other thing is interesting. I was watching their game against the Sabres the other day in which the power play really didn't do much. And that was actually one of the most impressive penalty-killing performances I've seen against the caps. And I think it started from defending zone entries, actually.

They were pressing the caps really high up the ice. And they recognized that really the caps in terms of zone entries really just have one play. And they kind of have variations of it, and sometimes they'll do other stuff. But it's a play with a bunch of different reads, almost like a football player where the quarterback has a first read and a second read and a third read. And Buffalo just sort of snuffed it out. They knew exactly what Niskinin was going to do coming up the ice. And it really disoriented the caps.

So there are things I think the teams can do. And I think it's a matter of preparation. It's a matter of understanding what kind of a monster of a power player dealing with and having plans early on in terms of, you know, before the puck gets into the zone, exactly how are we pressing them, who are their options, what do they like to do and how are we going to cut it off? And then once you get in the zone, your four guys on the ice had better know exactly who you're covering because there isn't going to be any surprise in terms of where guys are going.

So there's no excuse. There have been a couple of teams. I'm trying to remember who they were recently who just the guys didn't even seem to know who they were covering. There was confusion. And I was like, how can that even be a, you know, no one's going to accuse this of being an unpredictable power play. I mean, you know what's happening. You've got to be able to, if you're a guy on that penalty, you ought to know who you're covering. So that's what I would say in terms of

defending it. Yeah, I think every person, not even the opposing team, but I think like every fan in the building and watching at home knows exactly what they want to do. And I guess that's what makes it remarkable when they, like they're actually so able to continue being so effective considering everyone knows what they're going to do and they still just pull it off. And that's really the testament to how good it is. I mean, there have been power plays that have worked in the past over short periods of time and then teams have adapted and that's the same with sort of every strategy you've seen or every set play but the consistency and the way they've managed to to keep this going despite the predictability is just so remarkable and I would say they're actually

and I'm going to have a post on this later in the week there's been a couple of times where the caps have incorporated new wrinkles where they've rotated to different things in the offensive zone that have just totally flummoxed oppositions and it's crazy that they can do that and it gives them yet another weapon and yet another level. And if I were them, what I would do, I mean, Todd Reardon, I think, is the guy who runs the power play there. And what I would do is, you know, you keep practicing that power play and keep getting those passes crisp and everything.

And then maybe each month you incorporate a new wrinkle in terms of, you know, another shift you can do of guys going in different places of a team has you figured out. And then maybe not even incorporate that until you get to the playoffs. I mean, this team is coasting at this point. But if you can get into a playoff series and when you need a goal, goal, you pull out one of these wrinkles that you've practiced a lot during the season. I don't see why this power blade couldn't clip at 30 plus percent in the playoffs just based on the ability to do that.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned that Buffalo kind of succeeded in holding their own line and preventing the carry-ins. And we just recently alluded to the fact that, you know, these five-on-five conventions that we build into our minds in terms of the quantity of shots and carrying the puck-in example, for example, those are paramounted. a five-on-five, but on the power play, they might not necessarily be as important. Like, do you think that is there enough data to know for sure whether carrying the puck

in into the offensive zone is actually vital, or would it make intuitive sense that because you do have a man advantage, that you'd be more likely to retrieve the puck if you do dump it in and chase after it? Yeah, so I'm going to have some posts up on this. Obviously, it's sort of something, one of the first things that I wanted to look into when it comes to entries is the dump-in versus carry-in divide. And I think that if you think about it logically, and the data sort of backs this up, I think compared to even strength, dumping in is less of a disadvantage on the power play than it would be at even strength just because you have that extra guy to recover that dump in. So you tend to work sort of two-on-one board battles rather than one-on-one board battles, which definitely helps.

But what you lose in maybe a greater sense is the fact that one of the biggest sort of shooting percentage spikes when it comes to scoring goals on the power play is rush shots. If you get a good rush, and the caps are also, you know, an example of a team that has an incredible ability to get spring guys, especially Kuznetsov for breakaways when it comes to on the rush. I know there's a Carlson to Kuznetsov rush play that they love doing when Carlson's healthy, which has sprung Kuznetsov for a bunch of rushes. But, you know, if you dump the puck and you lose that ability. So the shots you're going to get are all going to be, you know, once you're in formation or the puck off the boards, but you don't necessarily have that ability to spring guys with speed. So that's maybe the biggest disadvantage. but then also, you know, there is definitely a slight drop off. It's not as distinct as at even strength,

but there are definitely more shot attempts, more goals off of Carrions. Yeah, that would make sense. Cool, Mano, I'm looking forward to seeing you right about that. Anyways, before we keep going with the show, let me just give a quick shout out to both Daniel Adams and Jermaine Francis, who both recently became patrons of the show. Obviously, this is a free show for everyone to listen to,

and we do it not for the money, but because it's fun, and we love doing it, but at the same time, there are a few housekeeping fees and stuff that we need to tend to. So all the support we get from listeners is appreciated. So with that being said, let's move on to talk about the HABs. And I know that you don't write about them anymore necessarily, but you do still live in Montreal. And I kind of wanted to get your take on what the vibe like, what the vibe is like there based on the fact that they're running on a kind of historically abysmal rate here for the past 20 to 25 games or so. like what's the vibe like in Montreal? Man, it's crazy.

Like, what a weird season. I can't get over it. I mean, the fact that they started out so well and it's just come crashing down to earth. I don't know. I mean, I haven't looked into this, but I don't know if there's been, we've seen anything like this,

you know, in the time that we've tracked, you know, sort of possession numbers and everything like that. I don't know if there's been a team that's had, you know, such good, let's say, such a good PDO followed by such a terrible PDO in such a short period because this team was really looking like a cup contender

which wasn't something that a lot of us were expecting going into the season it seemed like there might be sort of a lack of direction but all the concerns seem to be eliminated very quickly and then now suddenly we're at a point where everyone seems to be freaking out no matter whether you're an athletics guy

or not here in Montreal everyone's panicking you know people are asking for the coach to be fired you know my sense on it is you know that as someone who you know doesn't watch as much Canadian hockey as I used to, but, you know, their shot numbers are still quite good.

You know, they're up there at the top of the league. Obviously, the goal tending has been something of an issue, although the biggest issue, you know, over the last month or so has just been a terrible shooting percentage. And, you know, the power play has been a disaster, too, which we can talk about after. But I think people are really hitting the panic button here. And I don't know whether Mark Bergeman is going to hit the panic button. my sense is still that we're a ways away from a potential coaching change. I know Bob McKenzie actually brought up on the radio here today

of the fact that he actually just signed Terry in the offseason to do a contract extension and that might play a role in terms of being able to defend himself to ownership and to whoever else if you were to pull the trigger on a coaching stage. That would be something that's tough to sell right after signing a coach to an extension. But we'll see what happens because it's one of those cases where you wonder, this is a team, it's a pretty young team in terms of leadership. they don't have some of the older guys, the Giants and the Georges and stuff, those guys on the team anymore. And you wonder whether in a slump like this, if a team without that veteran leadership is going to be able to pull out of a slump,

even if their underlying numbers suggest they should. So it'll be something interesting to follow because it really looked like a team that could contend for the Cup early in the season. And I wouldn't totally discount the ability they could get back to that. But it's going to have to be something to pull them out of this. Well, yeah, and I may have to profess myself. I was pretty high on them after the first couple weeks of the season and obviously realizing that they weren't going to win every game as they started to do. But I like the move that they finally put Placanich on the top line with Patrady and Gallagher

and moved Dairnay down to a more depth role, which suits his talents better. And I like them. They were deep. They were talented. They kind of were good at all facets of the game. And Price being out obviously hurts their cause. I feel like every team is kind of isn't a. immune to the fact that if they lose their best player, they're probably going to struggle.

But yeah, it's remarkable. They're a top five possession team in these past 20, 25 games, and their bottom three in both shooting percentage and save percentage. And I can't remember seeing anything like this sustained for this long. I mean, we're well past like a quarter of the way through the season in terms of how long this has been going on. And I don't know. It's interesting you bring up the whole Terrian thing because I would have thought that the one

kind of saving grace of this would be that they could finally use these wretched results as a reason to be like, okay, well, it's time for Michelle Tarian to go because we know that Berger van's been kind of committed to him in the past. And it was tough to justify firing him when they were winning so many games and being so successful. But I feel like everyone was sort of skeptical of the job Tarian was doing himself. And it might have been more so just the fact that the top end of this roster was so good that they were masking all those other concerns. And it would have been more optimal to bring in a different coach. So I don't know. I would personally like to see them bring in a different coach and see if they can, once they get fully

healthy, go on and run again. But it sounds like they're not really going to do that yet. So you brought up the power play. And obviously a lot's been made of the fact that P.K. Suban is shooting a remarkably low percentage this season compared to what he's done in the past. And I don't know, have you seen anything from watching them up close that would kind of suggest that there's like a specific schematic reason for why that's happening or is it just purely just shooting luck? Well, I think the biggest thing for them, at least that I've noticed to this point, is, I mean, their biggest weapon should be P.K. Subban, right? I mean, he's the guy who, you know, when you think back to iconic goals that Habs have scored in recent seasons, especially on the power play. I mean, I think of the goal they scored to tie the game in 2011 in the playoffs against the Bruins with a couple minutes left. There was a couple goals. Suban scored in overtime on power plays on incredible one-timer slap shots. And the difference between those and what he's doing now is Sub-Suban's really isolated on the blue. line. The way they're using him now is a lot of times he'll be taking far out one timers from the

right side, which is his strong side, which isn't exactly the point you want him at in terms of getting a good angle for shots, or even slightly on the left, but still very much at the blue line. And I think I pulled the numbers on this a few days ago, and Suban had, I think, something like 81 timers on the power play this year, and only two of them were closer to the net than the bottom of the faceoff circles, which is ridiculous to me. because to me, you know, he should be there Alex Ovechkin. He should be in that right face off, or left face off dot. That should be his office and you should have a guy like Jeff Petrie, let's say,

on the blue line as the sort of, you know, more strictly defensive player who's quarterbacking things from the point and then feeding those one-timers over to Suban closer to the net so we can get more of an angle and get the goalie out of position. So that's something I've noticed. Obviously, you know, there are issues with their entries as well. they like to dump the puck in a lot. They don't necessarily always get set up super quickly. But, I mean, those are all issues that a lot of teams have that aren't the Washington

Capitals. So can't necessarily be too upset about that. But for me, the number one thing for them would be get Suban closer to the net in positions to take shots because him having one power play goal at this point in the season is just unacceptable, frankly. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're seeing more teams kind of be progressive in their ways in terms of mixing things up and going to, you know, four forward sets on the power plan, whatnot. But I feel like

we still don't see nearly enough in terms of moving your chest pieces around in a creative manner to, as you say, like, PKK UBN is pretty clearly their most devastating weapon on the power plan. It makes no sense that they just keep trotting out the same formation rather than sort of shifting him around and keeping defenses off balance and trying to find better avenues for him to get shots onto the net. It seems like very common sense and intuitive, but at the same time, we just never see teams kind of do that stuff. Yeah, and I think there's often sort of a communication breakdown in terms of some of the analytic concepts, let's say, that we discover and then how they're applied to teams. I mean, I know Matt Cain over at HockeyGraphs had a piece a while back on how four forwards on the power play tends to be a better option than three forwards and two defensemen. And soon after you saw the Canadians be like, oh, we're going to put four forwards on our power play now.

And next thing you knew, David DeHarnay was playing the point on the left side where he doesn't really have the ability to do anything with that on his strong side, because there are very few passing lanes when you're a left-handed player playing on the point on the power play. So that didn't really seem to work, and they've sort of gone back a little bit from that, and they consistently try different people in different formations, which honestly isn't what I would ever try on the power player. I'd want, you know, generally to be practicing with the same units or at least have people in the same roles. and then rotate them as needed in that sense. But it just seems like, you know, a line blender in the same sense that it would be at even strength,

which doesn't tend to lead to good chemistry or crisp passing or, you know, tick-tac-toe plays. It just leads to confusion and not a lot of success. Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, continuity on the power play definitely seems like it would be a pretty important thing to kind of make sure you're installing it moving forward. I think so, yeah. I think if you're going to switch the people up,

which I don't have a problem with, I think you should be, those players should know that if they're coming into a power play, they're going to be playing in role X or role Y so that they is almost, I mean, I keep bringing up football because in my mind, power plays are so much more similar to other sports in the way that they're set plays. But, you know, if you want a guy memorizing all the plays for, let's say, they're the right guard in their offensive line, you know, you're not going to put that guy in a receiver and be like, oh, you know, you don't have experienced this, but play this role.

I think it should be the same way on the power play, you know, and the caps do that well, in terms of whether it's Galeev knows if he's in the lineup, he's going to be playing, he's going to be Alex Ovechkin on the second unit, or Jason Chimera and Andre Berkovsky, those guys are going to be the Kuznetsov and the, or the Johansen and the Baxter. And everyone sort of knows their role. And in that way, they can learn from the players who are on that first unit. You know, I think Kuznetsov learned a lot from Baxter in that role this year.

And there's so many advantages to doing it that way. Do you think Galeev brags to his friends, like, yeah, I'm the Alex Ovechkin of the second unit. Well, maybe let's wait until he scored the goal for that position. I think every time he takes a one-timer, it doesn't go anywhere near the net. But to be fair to him, those one-timers, I mean, you gain an appreciation for how good Alex Ovechkin is at one-timers if you see every other team try and take one-timers on the power player at all.

It just seems like three-quarters of them miss the net. And Ovechkin is so remarkable at being able to get them on net and get them where he wants at a high speed. Yeah, that's a true sign of greatness where you can just make otherwise different. of things look super easy and make people think that everyone can do it. Eric, man, thanks a lot for taking the time. And I highly recommend everyone goes, follows you on Twitter. It's just your full name.

And read all your articles about the special teams project because it's been, it's been very enlightening. And I'm looking forward to what you can see moving forward, what you can do from it moving forward. Do you have any things you'd like to plug or any kind of projects that you've been working on or have in your mind that people can look forward to? Not really I mean just keep following

NHL special teams dot com I think you know that's going to be where most of my work is for the rest of the season I think and there's going to be a lot

coming out there I'm going to try and have about a post every weekday if I can manage that it's a lofty expectation so I'll see if I can come through on that and congrats to you guys

on your 50th episode and you guys are doing great things and keep it up on that front too thanks a lot man we'll make sure to have you back on as the season goes along For sure. The Hockey PDOCast, online at HockeyPedocast.com.

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